The Unit of Analysis, the Nature of Policy Spaces and the Model Approach

The evaluation of formal models generates questions about the unit of analysis, the nature of the policy space and the kind of criteria to be applied for comparative testing. Do we study decision-making at the proposal level or do we explore the policy space of a set of proposals across multiple sectors? Can we reduce the policy space of the unit of analysis and if so, how do we reduce it? And how do we test formal theories - should we use point predictions offering multiple criteria or do we have proceedings which control for robustness and the level of assumptions?